Product manufacturers and retailers have always been interested in finding new ways to better attract a prospective customer into trying one of its products. People easily get stuck in pattern behavior and often require some incentive to try an alternative brand or to try a new product being introduced to the marketplace.
Product promotions via product specific discount coupons are commonly found in newspapers, magazines, periodicals, and much of what is generally referred to as junk mail. The coupon is clipped out of the periodical and taken to the retail store were the promise of a bargain value results in a purchase at a discounted price, thus achieving the sponsor's objective of inducing people to try their product.
Various prior art vending machine systems provide volume discounts, extra prize vends, discount coupons and other incentives to attract patrons to the machine. A subscription system in which customers pre-pay for a particular vending machine product in order to receive a per-unit discount on purchased items is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,988,346 granted Nov. 23, 1999 to Tedesco, et al. An automatic vending machine with lottery bonus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,213,524 granted Jul. 22, 1980 to Miyashita, et al. and has a plurality of electric lamps arranged geometrically on a front panel of the machine and a lamp control circuit for lighting the lamps successively in response to a vending signal and produces a winning signal for discharging an extra article if the light spot is stopped at a predetermined lamp having a lucky number. A vending machine randomly dispensing special prize items in addition to selected items is disclosed in U.S. Pat. App. No. 2002/0107610 filed Aug. 8, 2002 by Kaehler, et al. wherein the special prize item may be substituted for the desired product or vended at random in addition to the desired product. Finally, a vending machine that randomly produces a proof-of-purchase coupon to provide the customer a discounted price on a later purchase from a similarly equipped machine is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,575,363 granted Jun. 10, 2003 to Leason, et al.
In the category of vending free trial samples to prospective customers, while there have been specific machine designs for dispensing fluids and sprays in a retail environment, as for example the mannequin shaped perfume sample dispenser disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,535,921 granted Jul. 16, 1996 to Gelman, the prior art is void of any vending machine system for dispensing general product samples that enable a product manufacturer to attract existing customers of one of its brands to try a free sample of another of its brands.
What is needed and has heretofore not been available is a vending machine that can be used to promote one or more products within a larger group of products offered by the vending machine. Subscription systems use discounts to promote general use of the vending machine rather than to enable promotion of a particular product. Similarly, vending machines with a lottery feature use the random dispensing of prizes to promote general use of the vending machine rather than to enable promotion of a particular product. Still other vending machines having coupon printing and reading capabilities are logistically suited toward promoting the route operator's agenda versus promoting a product manufacturer's agenda because each of a) the coupon printing strategy, b) the coupon printing probability, c) the coupon value, and d) the coupon acceptance locations are under the control of the route operator rather than the product manufacturer. Furthermore, coupon printers represent an additional cost burden for a vending machine and are generally considered unreliable in outdoor environments. In addition to the need for a vending machine that can be used to promote one or more specific products within the larger group of products available from the machine, there has been little consideration given to the logistics of exception handling for circumstances when a patron's behavior does not conform to the intended sequence of operation, including a) what should happen when multiple promotional tokens are received, b) what should happen for a subsequent patron when a vend cycle for a prior patron was begun with a promotional token is not completed, c) what should happen when a patron requests change from the machine to cancel a purchase that included value provided by a promotional token, and d) how a patron knows which subset of items are available for vending with the promotional token.
As can readily be appreciated from the foregoing, there remains a need for further improvement in the features, structure, function and operation of vending machines particularly as they pertain to the promotion of only a subset of the products or services that can be vended by the machine.